Posted on 10/16/2002 9:54:21 AM PDT by NorCoGOP
COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- In the early 1980s, college students helped to eliminate the apartheid regime from South Africa through a divestment campaign, according to Time and Newsweek. This is a movement by students to pressure their universities to review their investment portfolios and eliminate stocks of companies they believe are aiding human injustices. The anti-apartheid divestment movement is a shining example of how focused and passionate college students can organize and make a difference in the world.
Now a new divestment movement is sweeping campuses from coast to coast. According to Time, the campaign involves students' efforts to pressure their universities to divest from any company doing "substantial business with Israel." The goal of divestment activists is to pressure Israel into changing its policies toward the Palestinians, which the students consider oppressive. According to Time, major universities involved in this divestment movement include the University of Michigan, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Texas-Austin. Targeted companies include General Electric, IBM and McDonalds, according to Time. Unlike its anti-apartheid predecessor, this modern divestment movement is unnecessary, unjustified and ineffective. It also comes dangerously close to becoming anti-Semitic.
The problem with any movement against Israel is that the activists involved will always be suspected of harboring anti-Semitic feelings. Unfortunately, in the heated rhetoric that often accompanies discussions concerning Israel and the Middle East, it is hard to distinguish anti-Israel and anti-Semitic feeling. For example, according to Time, the Hillel Center for Jewish students at Berkeley was vandalized on the first day of Passover when someone threw a cinder block through the door and spray-painted its wall with an expletive regarding Jews. There was no evidence of a link to Berkeley's strong divestment campaign, but members of the movement have a duty to vehemently condemn any anti-Semitic words or actions. Instead, what they offered were weak and non-effective statements such as the one signed by 21 Berkeley faculty in which they "unequivocally" rejected "all forms of racism," according to The Daily Californian, Berkeley's student newspaper.
Another deficiency of the divestment movement is its overall lack of effectiveness. This defect is twofold. First, the universities simply do not agree with the campaign and see no reason to divest from Israel. As Time explained, "schools are not rushing to sell right now." Secondly, the divestment movement faces serious opposition from pro-Israel supporters. Even at places such as Berkeley, where the divestment movement has a particularly loyal following, a counter-petition denouncing divestment has been circulated and has collected 4,000 signatures, according to Time.
This is much more than the divestment movement has been able to accumulate. Christopher Cantor, a member of the campaign for UC Divestment from Israel, said in a Daily Californian column that this counter-petition "does indeed have many more signatures than the corresponding divestment petition."
As it wears on, the divestment campaign grows more and more egregious. Especially when its supporters try to compare Israel's policies to that of apartheid, as did Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a piece titled, "A Moral Campaign to End the Occupation."
This comparison is sick and cruel. Many of Israel's policies concerning the Palestinians are questionable and should be seriously reconsidered, such as Israel's occupation of disputed lands in the West Bank. However, to compare these policies and laws with the travesty of apartheid is immoral and unfair.
This is the ultimate failure of the campaign to divest from Israel. The students involved view a complex issue, the conflict in the Middle East, with too simple-minded a viewpoint. They speak of the human-rights abuses of Israel but conveniently never talk about the homicide bombers that target innocent civilians at will.
As Jonathan Alter pointed out in a column for Newsweek, they "say nothing when the Palestinians routinely execute suspected collaborators, including the mothers of young children." The divestment campaign will never be as successful as the anti-apartheid movement unless the student activists acknowledge these complexities.
Their folly shows that any campaign to bring about change in the Middle East can't be "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestenian," but must be pro-peace to succeed.
"Now a new divestment movement is sweeping campuses from coast to coast"
More like a socialist movement, in disguise, as is usual these days.
As usual, Time and Newsweek got it wrong.
South Africa was trying to stop its civilized, decent society from being overrun by degenerate savages. They lost and now South Africa is a nightmare and all the human beings are trapped and trying to leave while they are inexorably killed off by animals.
Israel is now trying to stop its civilized, decent society from being overrun by degenerate savages. If they lose, all the human beings will also be trapped and try to leave before they are inexorably killed off by animals.
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